Nights Without Night

by Marina Vivancos

  “But those incidents were out of the norm and risky enough to be of concern.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  “Okay. Let me recap. Your main worries centre around the fact that, one, he seems to be isolating himself completely, even from you. And, two, he shows reactive behaviours in response to anger, especially when concerning a perceived wrong done to you,” he says. I nod along until he gets to the last bit. Yes, both those incidents had involved not only a perceived wrong, but a perceived wrong done to me.

  From the garden of memory, incidents from childhood sprout up. Isadoro breaking up with a girl after she was nasty to me. Him having a row with his grandfather for the first time after Frank made a comment about me being a pansy, something which I’d never seen happen before. I was the one that told Jamie Lanson to back off.

  “Yeah,” I say, wondering how I hadn’t made the connection before.

  “How is his self-care? You mentioned you don’t think he’s eating much. Does he sleep?”

  “No, but he’s barely slept since he got here.”

  “Does he wash regularly?”

  “I don’t think so. His room smells.”

  “Okay. Any other risky behaviour? Consumption of alcohol or drugs?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “Self-harm in the form of physically hurting himself?”

  “Jesus. I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know what he does in his room.”

  “I know these questions can be alarming, but I’m trying to evaluate risk. If he doesn’t have a history of it and you have seen no signs, we can mark it as a no for now. Now, this is another question that might sound concerning, but all you can go off is the information you have. Has he ever expressed a desire to end his life?”

  “No. No, no, he—he’s never said anything about…anything like that.”

  “Okay, it’s just good to cover all our bases,” he says, but I’m shaken. That’s not something I even want to think about, even if at times it takes over my head.

  “I just…I don’t know. I’ve read the statistics, I’ve-”

  “I understand your concern, but your friend is not a statistic, Iván. Yes, statistics can give us information about a group of people, but they are less useful when dealing with individuals. It’s best to look at the information we have in front of us.

  “No history of self-harm or behavioural indicators of suicidality. He has a support system which he lives with, and you have one too. Yes, it’s apparent your friend needs help, but I don’t think he poses a significant risk to himself or anybody he is currently in contact with. Again, that’s not to say he doesn’t need help, but for now, we can focus away from worrying about your friend going to any extremes.”

  “Okay. I just…I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say, how to help him. I don’t know when I’m pushing too hard or not enough. Do I barge into his room? Do I knock? How many times do I knock? Should I-”

  “Okay, let’s take a little breath,” Mansur says. I breathe shakily. My heart is pounding.

  I can’t lose Isadoro. Not now, when he’s finally back home. I can’t.

  “I understand your concern, and it’s good your friend has someone who cares so much, but…okay. Imagine your friend was in a car crash and broke his legs. What could you do to help him?” he asks. I frown.

  “Uh…Take him to the hospital?”

  “Sure. Anything else? After he leaves the hospital?”

  “Um, make him soup? Help him around?”

  “Okay, good. Help in his recovery with assistance he can accept. Are you in charge of re-knitting his muscles? His bones?” Mansur asks.

  “Um…no.”

  “Right. That’s up to him. And if he had to do physical therapy, could you force him to do it if he didn’t want to?”

  “I could nag.”

  “And if he refused?”

  “I…well…Okay, I think I get what you’re saying.”

  “Iván, as I say, I’m glad your friend has such a good friend in you, but he is his own person. If you feel capable, you can be there for him for the help he is ready to accept. For that, all you can do is keep offering it, and be present and active. But you can’t force him to take it. It’s not your responsibility to. His body must heal those bones. He has to put the time and effort into recovery. I understand how this can be frustrating for both of you, but it can also be empowering. He has autonomy concerning himself. It probably doesn’t feel like that to him right now, seeing as whatever he is going through is not a choice, but as the car crash was not a choice, the physical therapy is still the person’s responsibility. Not exactly fair, in a way, but it’s the way it is.

  “So, are you pushing him too hard by simply telling him about a job opening? No. He is an adult. Are you pushing hard by knocking on his door? No, he lives with you, and you’re friends. Treat him like you would any other person with boundaries. Yes, he might not be making the best decisions right now, but as long as he is not putting himself or others at risk, you can’t make those for him. If you do think he is a risk, call the Crisis Team or the police straight away.”

  “So…there’s nothing I can do.”

  “No, I didn’t mean quite that. There are things you can do. You can push. You can expect things from him and keep asking and trying. But this all has to happen with the understanding that, ultimately, his recovery is not your responsibility and you must accept his autonomy as a person. Does that make sense?” he says.

  I take a deep, shaky breath. My head feels overstuffed. I don’t know what I was expecting. An easy cure? Being absolved of Isadoro’s recovery should be a relief, but it feels exactly the opposite.

  “Yes. I just…”

  “I get it. You love him. You want to help,” he says. I look at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Well, obviously I haven’t met your friend, but I can give you some information and advice. Ultimately, the goal would be for your friend to seek our services or other mental health services himself, as I’m sure you’ve been telling him to do.”

  “Yeah, I have.”

  “Good. Okay, well, the fact that your friend was Special Ops puts us in a bit of a different situation than the norm because the psychology of someone who can do that job isn’t exactly usual, even in the military. He redeployed many times so unless something very outside the norm happened in his last tour that made him leave the service, he probably developed some resilience to the difficult situations he saw and participated in during his tours. That’s not to say they wouldn’t have had an impact on him, by any means, but that he did so many tours in such a high-responsibility setting complicates the picture.”

  “Um…”

  “Okay, let me clarify. From what research has shown us regarding mental health, veterans can be impacted by three main sources of stress. Firstly, from any physical wounds obtained in combat, which is obviously not applicable in this case.

  “Secondly, trauma and trauma symptoms directly caused by situation seen or participated in during the war. For example, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder falls under this, but that’s a very specific diagnosis, and people can still be impacted by trauma without hitting the criteria for PTSD, such as by having only depressive symptoms and still functioning, so PTSD is not the be-all end-all of impact from difficult experiences. I haven’t met a veteran who wasn’t impacted in some way by their service, but the extent and severity of those symptoms vary greatly. I’m sure your friend has been impacted by the things he has seen and done to some degree, but we won’t know to what degree until he seeks professional help. Many of his symptoms could be explained by trauma, but many symptoms can be explained by different reasons, and those reasons are important when choosing which treatment should be offered, but that’s not something you need to worry about. Have you ever seen him have an episode in which something triggers a sudden onslaught of sensory memories that takes him away from the present moment?”

  �
��No. He has nightmares, I don’t know…”

  “Okay, well, similar techniques can be used to bring someone back from a nightmare. Mainly, these techniques are called ‘grounding’. The purpose of these is to remind the person where they are and that they are no longer in a dangerous environment. There are a lot of versions of this technique, and your friend would have to try different ones out to see which is the best suited to him.”

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “Of course. Sometimes, people benefit from a grounding object, which is any small object they can carry with them all the time that they can hold or rub to centre them. A laminated card with certain sentences helps. Service animals serve a similar purpose. Alternatively, you can use your senses to ground yourself such as by thinking about five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can smell. Do those make sense?”

  “Yeah, thanks. That actually makes a lot of sense.”

  “Good. Okay, where were we…Right. The third main impact on a veteran’s mental wellbeing, and the one that is especially impactful in veterans of the Special Ops, is adjusting to civilian life.

  “Adjusting to civilian life isn’t just a practical adjustment in terms of finding housing, a job you have skills at, education, a partner, dealing with family life, etc. It’s also a psychological one. It’s going from feeling you have a purpose and a place and a team to feeling completely unmoored in a civilian environment you feel foreign in. For people in the Special Ops especially, this is one of the greatest contributors for affected mental health because they have such a great amount of responsibility, training, and time invested in what is ultimately an incredibly involved career. Many a twenty-year-old has felt adrift and rudderless simply due to the economic landscape right now. For veterans, this is multiplied tenfold by the disparity between their service and their life as a civilian, as well as the impact of trauma or traumatic events.”

  “So…he’s probably not only impacted by, like, things that have happened, but by feeling…purposeless.”

  “Yes. I’m going to guess the reason the incident at the bar affected him so much is because he perceived it as evidence of how he is failing to adjust to civilian life. In one moment he probably felt a lack of control and therefore discipline, a failure of the 'mission', losing his job, affecting you negatively, breaking a handful of civilian social conventions…After an incident like that, it’s easy to think, ‘I’m defective. What’s the point of even trying?’ and giving up.”

  “Oh. That makes a lot of sense,” I say. I hadn’t actually given much thought as to why that particular incident had been so impactful beyond the obvious. “So, what do I do?”

  “Treat him like a person. Like your friend. If you have a project he can help you with, ask him to be involved. Ask him to do chores. Small things that can be escalated into more demanding things. Don’t treat him like he’s a ticking time bomb. Simply, show him he’s not defective. You can’t force him to believe it, but you can show him,” Mansur says. I nod slowly, trying to process the onslaught of information.

  “Okay. I think…that makes sense.”

  “Good. And lean on your own support system. Do not isolate yourself. Do not cast yourself as your friend’s saviour. Be smart about the sacrifices you make for him. You mentioned you’re in college — make sure you keep at it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, laughing a little.

  We talk for a few minutes more, but I can’t take much more. The session was useful but oddly exhausting. I leave with his direct office line in my pocket, feeling tired but also the one thing I’d been looking for.

  Hope.

  **********

  I let a few days pass, feeling Mansur’s words percolate through the grooves of my brain. They drip down the windowpane of my worries, mixing with all the dust and the grime already collected there until I can see an idea peek through the glass.

  After a knock and a warning, I step into Isadoro’s room.

  “Isa, I really need your help,” I say. Surprisingly, he stirs straight away, turning to look at me. He blinks at the light streaming from the hallway.

  “What?” he croaks.

  “I need your help. Please,” I say, and walk back towards the living room, leaving his bedroom door open.

  I wait. I strain my ears for the click of his door shutting, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Isadoro appears, rumpled and bruise-eyed, but there.

  “Sit down, okay? I need help with a project,” I say, pointing at one of the kitchen stools I’ve placed in front of the easel, behind which I’m standing.

  “You want to draw me?” Isadoro asks, frowning.

  “Not quite,” I say, and busy myself with the paints and pencils, moving them around restlessly so he doesn’t feel watched.

  Amazingly, he sits down. I take a deep breath.

  “I want you to describe a memory of when you were deployed. Or, like, not the full memory, but describe one scene. It doesn’t have to be, you know, anything…big or…you know. It can be anything. A street. A landscape. A person. A moment. Whatever,” I say. Isadoro still has a frown on his face.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to draw it.”

  We look at each other. The silence stretches. Then, he sighs.

  “Fine,” he says, like he’s only sitting there because it would take more effort to say no than to say yes, but I don’t care. I’ll take what I can get.

  It takes him a while to think of a memory, but I don’t prompt him. I watch him from the corner of my eye. He’s lost his military posture. His back is a broken curve, hands loose between his knees as he rests his feet on the bar between the stool’s legs. His skin is sallow and it’s obvious he’s lost weight.

  He doesn’t look like any Isadoro I’ve ever met before, but I’ll take this one too.

  I startle a little when he starts talking but listen intently. The image is simple but precisely described. My hand moves on its own, following Isadoro’s words easily. The scene takes shape in front of me almost as if I were there, as if Isadoro were lending me his eyes for a moment.

  It’s a hot day. The hottest day you’ve ever felt, that you could ever dream of. The air is a weight pressing you down. Your uniform is familiar, now, but no less suffocating as you stand in the sun. You can feel sweat collect, dry, collect. Unreachable patches of your skin itch. You’ve learnt to ignore them.

  You are watching. Waiting. Three-quarters of this game, you’ve learnt, is watching and waiting.

  You look at a building. It’s beige like everything else is beige. Except for the sky, which is always so blue that if you look straight up and squint your eyes it’s like you’re falling right through. Like most of the buildings in this town, in this land your people have failed, this building is chipped and worn. There’s a section on the side that’s missing, like a bite taken from an apple. There’s trash all around it, leaves its shed in preparation for a spring that never comes. There’s a metal fence between you and the building but that too is half falling apart.

  The façade of the building is a series of precarious balconies, rows of black, blind eyes.

  Except for one. From one single balcony, a red cloth hangs. Too big to be a hijab, but you think it’s a similar material. Weightless. It’s moving, the corners rippling. The whole of it lifts every once in a while, like the ghosts of children running under their mother’s skirt. You can’t feel a breeze, and it’s like you’re looking at another world. A little rectangle of colour, poking through.

  You just watch it for a while and think of nothing.

  **********

  I expect it to be a one-off thing, but it keeps happening. Not every time I ask him, but often enough to give me hope.

  He’ll sit on his stool and describe a scene, and I’ll draw. A dog with its nose pressed against one of the soldier’s hands. A group of children gathered around, eager to see the treats the soldiers have in store. A half-broken door, smoke all around, obscuring what’s on the other
side. The lights of a village on a mountainside, the sparks of gunfire shattering the night.

  Sometimes, it’s obvious he’s been thinking about the memory all day. Others, we won’t even get to the memory. He will just sit there, lost in his head, closed off from me completely. I watch the cursive writing of his intrusive thoughts across his face, one word dragging another, and another, and another. On those occasions, I’ll just draw him, the grey and blue colours of his curved form, the distance between us.

  And, rarely, are the moments when he talks. Really talks. The chosen memory will take him somewhere else and he’ll drift along, lost in it.

  He describes a meeting inside a hut. A circle of people; one half composed of local men, the other of foreign soldiers, with the hinge of the translator between them. Slowly, the scene expands. He talks about how, by the time Isadoro got there, there was no way to win the hearts of the Afghans. Too much harm had been done. The only in they had was through material change. Employment, money, goods. It equalled to a sense of purpose.

  Stability.

  Some of the soldiers would grouse about how greedy these people were. Obsessed with money. Always wanting more. It curdled Isadoro’s stomach. To the wealthy, the desire for money, the desperation to get it, is seen as greed. Those who know better see that true avarice lives in the obsession with keeping money, not getting it. To those who know hunger—true hunger, the kind that doesn’t live encapsulated in the now but stretches forward, a shadow reaching into the foreseeable future—money is the light that will once and for all banish darkness. It’s why Democracy and Capitalism go hand-in-hand, Isadoro says. People seek freedom in the ball and chain of money.

  Isadoro would have done anything for the men and women fighting with him. Followed every command from above without hesitating in behaviour, but his head kept asking—why?

  “That’s why I joined the Ops, I guess,” he says. To help through strategy instead of simply force. To command and enact change from above. The dedication to his service shines through, almost solidified by his ability to be critical of the system he was in.